Vesuvius Now
by Final-Acts
Summary: A mysterious trip to Pompeii lands the gladiators there just in time to witness, and partake in, one of the most chillingly complete and brutal killings of all time... when they seek refuge in Herculaneum.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Am totally disregarding actual timelines, sorry. Don't like it? Don't read it.

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**Vesuvius Now**

**pt. 1**

"It's not going to happen this way," Varro said solemnly, his eyes locked at a point above the city walls. There was a distant rumbling and the daylight seemed darkened, stained somehow. "You think Pompeii is nothing but a place? It's a fate. For all of us." He smiled and shook his head, then let his eyes close. Small bits of stone began falling from the sky, striking his skin and bouncing off of it.

Spartacus held a hand out. He didn't understand. The stone, lightweight and porous, bounced from his hand as well. It felt like rain. "Varro… what is happening?"

"Fate," the blonde man whispered. He fell to his knees. "This is gentleness. When it happens, it won't be like this. There won't even be time to scream." A crack, like close up thunder, shattered the sky. Varro inhaled and then doubled over, coughing, body seizing in agony.

"Varro!" He held out a hand to help him, but his hand melted away to nothing. Searing heat and pain rushed into his lungs as well and Spartacus also fell.

He woke, sweating, and sat up too quickly. Heart pounding, Spartacus looked around at the familiar walls of his cell in the ludus. His door was open, daylight was starting to stream in. The day was going to be hot, they all were, but he still felt chilled. He couldn't recall what his dream had been, but he remembered that there had been pain and fear. _Sura then, I guess. What else do I dream about? _He scrubbed an arm over his face and then got to his feet. Why was it so quiet out there? Forcing himself to fully awaken, Spartacus stumbled out. He got himself some water and then went to look for Varro, feeling a strange need to see him well.

Varro stood with Crixus. They were looking over a scrap of paper together, although from opposite directions. _A map, _Spartacus thought. What else did men look at when standing towards each other?

"Are we taking a trip?" He asked, halfway jesting. He stood near his friend and looked at the map. The first thing he saw was its poor orientation and the wobbly hand it had been done in. Not an official chart, something drawn from memory. There was a large bay, a mountain, and three cities noted on it. "Stabiae… What's this?"

Crixus was tempted to make a crack about being surprised the Thracian could read, but he restrained himself. He let go of the paper and stalked off.

"Details are short," Varro explained, handing the paper to his friend, "but apparently someone will be covering the cost for Dominus to bring several of us all the way to Pompeii. We're leaving today." He noticed the sweat and the look of weariness. "Did you sleep at all last night?"

"I think I dreamed…" Spartacus shook his head, staring at the map. The scrawl of a mountain, Vesuvius, was captivating. "Thank the gods I don't remember the dreams, this time."

"Indeed. We don't need any more doom and gloom from you." Varro winked, making it a jest. He trudged off to get himself some breakfast.

_You think Pompeii is just a place? _Words, without meaning, surfaced to echo through the gladiator's mind. Spartacus shook his head and handed the map off to the next man wanting to see it.


	2. A Fishy Morning

"Took fucking long enough to get here," Crixus growled. They had been installed in the home of a wealthy merchant, whose name he didn't bother to remember. The air was even hotter here than in Capua. They'd arrived at some point in the night and would be spending the day entertaining their host, whoever he was. Whenever he woke up. Crixus had been up for several hours already. He stood now in the courtyard, hoping for a breeze, but none came. The air was heavy and stagnant. "When do we serve our purpose?"

"The heat gets to you," Spartacus replied, tone irritable. He wasn't happy with this either. He sat on a stone bench and looked at the sunlight dancing on the surface of a pool. The home they'd been brought to was beautiful, the garden enchanting. A lot of care obviously went into keeping it maintained. There were no weeds, some flowers bloomed even in this hellish weather, and the air was sweetly scented. It seemed almost sacrilegious for them to be here. _I wonder why we aren't being kept in their arena? These walls wouldn't even be that difficult to scale… _

"Hm." Crixus turned and glowered at him for a moment. "Not the heat. Dreams."

Spartacus sat up straighter and turned to look at him, surprised by this. The man was conversing with him? Decently? "What dreams?" he asked softly.

Frowning as if he already regretted speaking, Crixus gave the 'champion' a hard look and shook his head. "It doesn't matter."

"Are you sure?" He stood. "All our way here, I had nightmares. I can't remember any of them, but I know the effect they had on my body. If you remember yours…?"

"Remembering and understanding are different, Rabbit." Crixus locked his hands behind his head and pulled it down, pressing his face towards his chest, stretching out his neck. It was relaxing. When he finished, he saw Spartacus still watching him intently. "What?"

"Was there… some kind of rain? That wasn't quite rain?"

Eyes cool, the gladiator nodded. "Stones."

"Rain made of stones…" Spartacus shook his head. "I think that may have been part of mine. Varro told me… something…"

"To suck his cock once he was finished with yours?"

Spartacus shook his head in disgust. Well, that attempt at a friendly moment was over. He resumed his seat on the bench and took up looking at the water again. It had grown still, as no fish had broken the surface in the past few minutes, and there was still no wind. He stared at it, letting his mind relax into quietness. After a while, he saw strange ripples on it. They were tiny and incredibly close together, they chased each other across the surface in confusion. _Huh. I haven't seen that before. _He reached down and poked the water. Something yellow rose up towards his hand and he pulled his finger away before it could make contact. "What the…"

Crixus looked over. "What are you pissing about?" His voice was rough, but there was real curiosity there. He wasn't happy to be here and had no problem letting it show. He walked over and looked down at the dead goldfish that had floated up. "_That_ catches your eye?"

"They were swimming not moments ago…" As they watched, the other six fish also floated to the surface, also dead. "The heat?" He looked up at Crixus.

The other man shook his head. "I don't know."

Tension was building in both of them. Something was wrong with this morning.


	3. The Sweet Scent of a Brother

Not long after, a house servant walked out with a bucket and a small net in his soft hands. He looked weary and mildly irritated as he breezed past the gladiators on his way to the pond. With a shake of his head as he looked at the dead fish, he knelt and tilted the bucket. Water poured out, with several brilliant flashes of bronze as the new goldfish swam into the nearly black depths. The water should have been cleaner to display them well.

Spartacus and Crixus exchanged an uncomfortable look. Why bother with the fish? With a mild frown, Spartacus addressed the man. "It looks as if you do this often." His frown deepened, perplexed, as he watched the entirely callous way the man pulled the dead ones to him in his net. It looked like he'd repeated the job too many times, from the dullness in his expression. _He looks like a fat, tired old bull. _

The slave gave him a brief and distinctly withering look, losing any of his bovine dumbness in an instant. However enthused his master purported to be to have the gladiators here, he clearly didn't share the sentiment. "Every day this week."

"What's the point?" Crixus asked him with disgust. "Doesn't anyone sell healthier fish? Waste of money."

"Not my money." He put the little bodies in his bucket and straightened up. "Not your business."

Crixus bristled, slightly, but managed to mostly keep a rein on his irritation. There just wasn't any _reason _to show it to this soft creature with stupid masters.

Spartacus leaned over and looked at the slimy, dead, pretty little bodies oozing around in the bucket as it moved. Their scales were bright and their eyes hadn't filmed over yet. The gills were inflamed and ragged at the edges with tiny blood vessels, but he didn't see that with any sort of understanding. They just looked like dead fish to him. "I wonder why they're dying?"

"Have enough free time to wonder about things you shouldn't? It's a wonder your master gets any work out of you."

_Bitter son of a whore, _Spartacus thought. He shook his head and walked away to be under the shade of the wall.

Even more offended now, Crixus didn't even try to get out of the house slave's way when he started to head out of the garden. "What are you doing to do with them?"

"Like you give a fuck?"

He didn't. They were stupid dead fish. He really couldn't care less. The earth gave another small shake under their feet, but since nobody else reacted to it, Crixus chose not to act as if he'd even felt it. He glared down at the slave and then, with an exaggeratedly patronizing smile, stepped out of his way. "Go, labor."

The house slave sneered and shook his head. He went over to the dusty area where several chickens were starting to scratch about. The birds seemed unhappy, not at all as content as they should have been with their deep dust and the sunlight, but they still perked up when he came near. He dumped the fish to the ground. They glittered like gold coins for a moment after they sent up puffs of dust, but it began sinking and covering them. The hens moseyed on over to start pecking. They did like this breakfast. Duty done, the slave slipped into the shadows.

A groan from their sleeping area made Crixus turn around. Gnaeus was up on his knees, holding a hand over his stomach. He'd been some distance away from the others during the night, due to a very special gas he'd managed to create. "Jupiter's… _shit!" _He hugged his stomach tighter and bent double.

"What?" Varro looked sleepy, but at least he was sitting up. He got up and started to walk over to the man, following some misplaced sense of compassion perhaps, but he fell back a few feet short of him. "Fuck!" He covered his nose and mouth, then laughed in impressed shock. Rolled his eyes a bit at the pain of the scent. "Go shit yourself clean somewhere, would you?"

"I _did! _Last night! There can't be anything left…"

His misery was met with a chorus of laughter from the others. They'd had to deal with his stench the past two days, they'd earned the right to laugh at him. Gnaeus shivered, skin pale. "Fuck off! I think I'm really sick."

Spartacus sighed and headed over to him. He stopped next to Varro, also held back by the smell. His eyes watered. "Good god," he covered his nose, "What did you _eat?" _

"Nothing! I didn't fucking eat anything! I'm going to be sick…" The man turned back to his place against the wall and start dry heaving. It wasn't at all pleasant to watch or listen to, so Varro clapped his friend on the shoulder and walked back to the others and to fresher air. Spartacus stayed a moment, observing the ill man.

"It smells like rotten eggs," he said eventually, when Gnaeus' stomach had calmed. Nothing had been produced, thank the gods. Who wanted to see and smell that all day? The man was bad enough without his bowels being made public. "Fasting may do you some good."

Gnaeus gave him a red-eyed glare of agony. He slumped down against the wall again. There was a small crack in the ground near his hand, near where his head had rested through the night. He looked at it and didn't think anything of it, just pushed some dirt down it, then closed his eyes and thwacked his head against the wall. "Fuck you all."

"Only if you bend over first," someone answered him with a smirk.

Spartacus followed that comment up with, "But I think it best that we all wait until the passage is clearer. Safer, lest the odor transfer."

"GAH!" was the erudite, patient, civilized reply from their brother. He folded his arms and ignored them. It was easy to do with how miserable he felt.


	4. One Loud Sound

Minutes later, there was a mild tremor in the ground. They felt them often in Capua, it was hardly a reason to be concerned. The stillness of the morning was largely undisturbed; after a moment of silence, everyone across the town went back to what they had been doing. In the garden, however, Gnaeus had widened his eyes and stared. The crack in the ground near him had widened and was hissing quietly. The scent was stronger now than it had been. His eyes watered and he backed away.

"It wasn't my fault," he whispered, staring. He sat on his butt staring at the crack down by his feet.

"What was that?" Spartacus looked over at him. "Who were you speaking to?"

"The smell! It's not me! There's something in the ground here. Rotting."

Varro wrinkled his nose. "Lovely. You never fail to delight me in the morning." He turned back to Spartacus and shook his head. "Of course I haven't heard either. It's like they just want us here to look pretty…" He saw Gnaeus get up and walk back to his crack. "What are you doing?"

The gladiator leaned down and sniffed. "It _is_ coming from here." He frowned. "I don't see anything." He crouched over it and started digging. "The tremor must have pushed it closer to the surface. Suppose it's an old body and something was buried with it?" The dirt fell away from his strong hands and he found rocks, which he began to pull aside.

Crixus, who hadn't been paying much attention to his dirt escapades, looked over at him. He felt a vague chill and considered snapping at him to stop. He didn't. Let the man play like the idiot child he so often attempted to be. He turned his attention back to the mountain. It was beautiful, he realized. The sunlight made the lush vegetation on its slopes seem to glow. He wondered why it was so barren near the very top; surely, closer to the sun, it must have been just as good a place to grow. _More difficult to water, perhaps. _It was captivating. It sat there so still, one peak so much higher than the other larger, gentler one around it. _As if the mountain rose from within an older one. _He folded his arms. He'd never really looked at mountains before, not looked to _see _them. He had seen a horizon or an obstacle to cross, but this – no. Never just for the sake of what it was.

There was another tremor. This one started off as gentle as the first, but then the ground pitched out from under them with one giant lurch. Men yelled, the chickens cried out and ran in all directions. Crixus had kept his balance fairly well and he straightened, glowering once again at the mountain.

"That was different!" Varro said with a laugh. There was a smattering of that laughter going around; earthquakes weren't generally something to be feared. True, they'd heard that this region had been experiencing some almost violent ones recently. There was even a great deal of rebuilding going on through the city, evidently owing to a serious bit of damage done. He clapped his friend on the shoulder – but lost his smile when he saw the serious look on Spartacus' face. "What?"

"Gnaeus?" Spartacus was staring at his still, slumped form. "It's over." He pulled away from Varro's hand and walked over quickly. The scent _was _stronger, he realized, and the crack in the ground was wider. It made him feel sick, as though he was as sick as Gnaeus. He leaned down and touched his shoulder. The man's body was as hot as any of theirs, his muscles as loose, but the Thracian felt it instantly in the touch. He was dead. The life was gone from that body. "Fuck," he whispered, his eyes wide.

"What's going on?" Varro stayed where he was. They were all on their feet now.

"He's dead." Spartacus shook his head. His heavy, swirling head. The air was so bad here. He hurried away from the body, away from that malodorous crack in the ground.

"Who's dead?" Crixus looked. Saw. Looked back at the mountain. "Are you seeing this?" In the past minute, while Spartacus had been discovering their brother's death, something had changed. There was a cloud around the top of the mountain, a mist. It was moving, spreading out in all directions, rapidly. "Birds."

"What?" Spartacus stalked over. "Why do you care about birds? He's…" But the sight was arresting and he went silent as well. Birds were flocking, rushing, screaming away from the mountain as though their lives depended on it. He suddenly felt a very cold stab of fear in his gut. "They're afraid of it." His voice was soft, almost questioning.

"Maybe we should all be," Crixus answered, voice a murmur as well. His eyes were locked on the mountain. Instinct had often served him well. He could usually tell who, in a mob coming at him, was going to be there most dangerous. He could feel where his attention needed to be directed, he knew when the moments of true danger were rising and when they had passed. Now, with instinct screaming against logic that the mountain was going to reveal some sort of threat, he found himself suddenly unable to look away.

The ground lurched once more under them. It twisted and jumped in a single strong movement that sent bricks cascading from walls, statues that usually withstood the shaking went tumbling to the ground. Spartacus fell. He caught himself on his hands and looked up in alarm as a single loud sound rent the air.

It was sharp and low. Hard on the skin and the ears, like the booming of titanic mounds of ice breaking against each other in a frozen river. One giant crack of a sound, accompanied by a rumble from under their feet. The sound was deafening, although brief. A puff of smoke rose from the top of the mountain. Brown and gray, it rose and twirled gracefully into the air. Although it had been small at first, it ascended quickly, billowing out and away from itself, blossoming into a soft, gentle looking cloud above the mountain. Above them. The winds, which were always blowing at this time of the year, brought it directly to them. It would be there in minutes.

"One could wish we had gone to Herculaneum or Misenum instead," Spartacus whispered.


	5. Rain?

"Misenum, maybe," Varro said. He walked up to stand next to Spartacus, staring. "But Herculaneum is just as close as we are. What do you suppose that is? Is there fire burning in the mountain?"

"There must be. It has the appearance of dirt, but to rise so high? Mustn't it be hot, like smoke?"

As for Crixus, he folded his arms. He didn't need to check the body, he believed Spartacus that Gnaeus was dead. There was some horrible air coming from the ground and it seemed to him that it must be connected to the explosion on the top of the mountain. "Someone should tell Dominus what has happened to Gnaeus."

"Yes," Spartacus answered, distracted. He shook his head and continued to stare, unable to take his eyes away. Throughout the city, nearly all the eyes were turned in the same direction and everyone was wondering the same thing: What was going on? The plume of dirt and ash continued to rise and to billow like the smoke from a vast forest fire that consumed acres of lush foliage. It seemed impossible that it could travel so high, but what was there to stop it in the air?

"That's incredible." Varro shook his head. "Vulcan must have been answered by something."

"Vulcan," Spartacus mocked, but there was no strength to the jeer. He finally tore his eyes away from the plume and looked, instead, at the wall. It wasn't that high or hard to climb, it seemed, and there was no plume of smoke to the south.

"I consider it, too," Crixus said suddenly. "No good can come of that." Still, none of them moved. It was transfixing, to see something so large and singular, so unexpected and strange. At several levels, they could see where the wind blew; some of the plume was being carried away, distorted. As the plume continued to climb, to become a tower of heat and earth carried into the air, it began to seem closer, almost as if it loomed over them.

Varro brushed absently as he thought he felt a bug land on his arm. A moment later, it happened again, but this time on his head. He brushed at it, still thinking nothing – until the sound came. At first it was like rain, the light pattering of large drops hitting the paving stones. They all heard it and felt it – small pieces of debris bouncing harmlessly off of them. Varro could not believe his eyes when he realized what he should be looking at. Small bits of earth were skittering across the ground like hailstones, falling from the sky. He held his hand out to it and watched, amazed, as pieces began to fall into his palm. None were bigger than a fingernail, so he saw no danger.

"Spartacus, examine. It is earth."

"Earth, yes, but why? What does it mean?"

There was another rumble, another earthquake, and then a second explosion from the mountain top. More smoke, earth, whatever it was, rushed into the plume, making it contort and swirl. This earthquake also ended quickly, but there was something remarkable about it: it didn't feel like it was over, like all of the energy had been spent. This time, the quake felt more like the first fist-shake of an angry man, rather than a cat stretching to relieve pressure. There would be more to follow.

"Get Dominus," Spartacus whispered. Varro nodded – and ran.


End file.
